JVC unveils world's first Ultra HD handheld camcorder

Price tag is less than £5k

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JVC GY HMQ10 in all its glory

JVC has announced the world's first handheld Ultra HD camcorder with the GY-HMQ10, offering 3840x2160 footage at 24 or 50p.

With a surprisingly small price tag of £4340 and a UK release date of March, the JVC Professional offering is likely to bring a fair bit of interest form those looking at the television trends towards Ultra HD.

The camera is powered by HVC's Falconbrid large-scale integration (LSI) chip and has a half inch CMOS imager with 8.3 million active pixels.

Birth of a new market

"We're witnessing the birth of what is destined to become a broad market for full 4K end-to-end production," said product manager, Gustav Emrich.

"The GY-HMQ10 is a breakthrough product that opens up 4K imaging to users who previously wouldn't have considered it."

JVC explains that the big problem with 4K for video is processing power, but that this is now shifting.

"There just hasn't been the ability to capture, process, display and record full 4K images in real time until now," adds JVC.

Apparently this is due to the Flaconbrid LSI processor which can take the raw image data and dematrix or DeBayer it in real time.

That means it can output to a monitor in real time with 'virtually no' latency, or save up to two hours of 4K footage to your SDHC or SDXC memory cards.

"Historically, JVC has been a leader in camcorder and display technology, and the GY-HMQ10 is our latest breakthrough," added Gustav.

"It's part of a larger move at JVC to bring 4K technology to a wide range of customers."